American Animals is another entry in the dramatized true crime genre and even its subject matter has been amply covered - why would these privileged white boys with their entire lives in front of them throw it all away? Actors playing the boys as they were in 2004 and the real-life men talking to the camera in the present day offer some answers, but if it were not for the skill of writer/director Bart Layton, American Animals would be a forgettable, “Huh, that was alright” film. However, Layton’s style of shifty editing and impressive directing raises the project up a few tiers. Everybody knows boys are capable of immense stupidity no matter race, creed, sexual orientation, or economic condition. It’s not the poor choices of bored, white boys which will engage the audience, it is the superior filmmaking.

Layton made a name of himself in 2012 with The Imposter, a documentary which gobbled up film festival awards and surprised even the most jaded viewers. It is not a full-blown cult classic, but it makes the list when folks ask for top notch docs. In 2018, Layton latched onto the true story of a quirky heist gone bad and came up with an innovative way to show it on film. Layton weaves together the real perpetrators detailing how they dreamed up and planned the caper alongside their fictional portrayal of young actors actually executing the crime. I can see how some will yell “gimmick” and roll their eyes, but this is rare originality we’re watching. Anyone else would have just cast good-looking boys and run with the racy suspense. Layton opts for depth.

The scene of the crime and potential loot are also out of the ordinary - Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky (I had never hear of it either) and extremely valuable first editions by Audubon and Darwin. The boys dream of millions of dollars for a non-violent crime, if only they could find a fence. The four undergraduates are seemingly well-educated, from stable backgrounds, and should have no motivation in the world to steal from the university’s special collection. Layton really wants to know why. This spurs digressions into hypotheses about a generation of well-off young men with expectations their lives were going to special in some way - it was their right that they were going to become interesting people.

Waking up from this fantasy as irrelevant and invisible Freshmen, the boys determine a get rich quick scheme would be far preferable to a life sucking up to fraternity brothers they hate, bosses they despise, and a suffocating white collar world. Layton did not convince this reviewer of an entire generation afflicted with a crippling ennui. I graduated college a couple years before this episode and I didn’t notice too many people shocked that life wasn’t handed to them on a silver platter, but social media had yet to truly invade the collective psyche either. There was no lost generation just as there isn’t one now even though society does appreciate a good millennial bashing.

Layton did not cast lookalikes. Barry Keoghan (Dunkirk) as Spencer Reinhard does not look like the real man. Instead, Layton employed very good actors forgoing likeness. The boys find their version of the character they play, even if it’s more refraction than true reflection. Layton also reminds us the human memory is fallible. Spencer and his good friend Warren (Evan Peters, The Lazarus Effect) differ on details about where they were when they first talked of stealing the books and who the ringleader was. Layton even shows us both versions using quick cuts so we can see both sides of the story. It’s not that Spencer and Warren are deflecting blame, it appears they truly remember things differently. ​

Warren googles “How to plan a heist” in the computer lab and instead of acting like an adept hacker or placing the camera over his shoulder, Layton has the audience in the monitor looking out at Warren as he nervously scratches at the keyboard. This is a fantastic shot as we feel like we are the monitor and some twitchy kid pokes around knowing he is up to no good. The foursome, also including brainy Eric (Jared Abrahamson), brought on for his skills in logistics, and Chas (Blake Jenner, The Edge of Seventeen), a gym rat who the crew believes will make a decent getaway driver, each convince themselves there is more out there for them than a Bachelor’s degree can provide. Warren preaches society is corrupt and fake, so why play the game? Bart Layton certainly didn’t play the game - that is why American Animals feels so different than the average caper; it’s fresh air in a cinematic world of Ocean’s 11 knock-offs.